Cosmo's Deli (5 page)

Chapter Four

Queasiness wakes Gaby from a fitful sleep. “Shit,” she grumbles, glancing at the clock showing four-twenty. “Shit.”

She stumbles out of bed and into the bathroom, nausea rising in her throat and bile flooding her mouth. Gaby's head just makes it over the toilet, heaving out whatever will come. Sitting on the cold tile floor, she leans back against the bathtub exhausted. There's nothing worse than throwing up.

Gaby grabs the bottle of Valium from the side of the sink and shakes her head to focus. Her last drink was at nine, more than seven hours ago. Blanking her mind of any consequences, she shakes two of the little white suckers out, pops them in her mouth and washes them down with water cupped in her hands. Facing the mirror, she expects to see immediate healing, only to be confronted with the same swollen-eyed reflection that has become so familiar.

Settling onto the couch in the living room, she glances at the mountain of shopping bags looming nearby, their individual logos reading like a roster of expensive stores. There was a time she could afford that kind of shopping, but not now. Lord, she thinks, I have to stop or my next date would be in court to declare bankruptcy, something she narrowly missed having to do when Unmentionables was sued. She turns and looks at the two photographs on the side table, each framing the catalysts behind her downward spiral—her ex-boyfriend, Stan, and her mother.

Stan was one of the lawyers handling her Unmentionables suit. Gaby used him as a strong legal arm to lean on in court and she used other parts of his body in the bedroom.

Her mother got it in her head that Stan was prime husband material, frequently reminding Gaby, “It's time to settle down, now that you're finished with that little company.”

“Mama, you make it sound as though I was selling porn instead of lingerie,” Gaby had told her.

“I call them as I see them, daughter,” was always her mother's reply.

The night the case was settled Gaby dumped Stan, in part because her mother liked him so much. Two days later, Gaby's mother had a heart attack and died at fifty-eight.

When Gaby flew to North Carolina for the funeral, Stan surprised her at the airport. “I love you, let me come with you,” he said. She did, and from that point on, Gaby clung to him as if her own life depended on it. They moved in together and he took control of everything. Awash in grief, she gratefully let him run her life. When her friends called, he would hang up on them, lying to Gaby that it was, “Just someone selling something.”

They even talked about marriage, but that stopped when she started seeing a shrink.

“He's not helping you,” Stan had railed, immediately seeing the shrink as a threat. “In fact, I think he's making you worse. You don't need a psychiatrist. What you need is to go back to work and rejoin the living. And I hope you're not talking to him about me!”

But what did Stan expect? He'd cut her off from everything, including her self-esteem, until all that was left was a shell of what she had once been. But Gaby gave in, partly. She ended her leave from the magazine, which kept her so busy that it was three weeks until she could get to her next shrink visit. She came home from that appointment to find that Stan had packed all his things. He told her, “I just never pictured myself with someone who needed therapy.” When the door closed behind him, a black veil dropped over her head.

Now the only man in her life was the shrink. Every Thursday she trekked from her Village apartment to his beige Eastside office. Grabbing a beige tissue and choosing the same beige chair across from the beige couch, she sunk into the soft leather as if it were a hug.

The shrink told her, “All relationships are complex. The object here is for you to understand the complexities of your relationship with your mother.”

Gaby knows it's just psychobabble for “You're fucked up.”

Eventually, he said, “You'll get to visit with your sorrow and leave it behind when you're done.”

Gaby gets up from the couch and knocks down the pictures of Stan and her mother. Splashing water on her face over the bathroom sink, she wishes she could turn away from the painful memories, but it's no use. Once they've started, they keep coming. It seems that no matter how far the shrink lifts the veil, something inevitably comes along blowing it back in her face.

That morning, for example, Gaby had every intention of going to work. That is until she opened the front door to get the newspaper and there it sat—trauma in a box from her sister Millie. Just a week ago Millie left a message in her chipper voice. “I've been going through more of Mama's things. Watch your mail, I sent you some stuff that I thought you would like to have.”

Good old reliable Millie.

The good daughter, who wore their mother's apron strings like a blue ribbon award from the state fair. Gaby and Millie were two sisters who grew up in the same dogwood shaded home, only to turn out as different as can be.

That's because Millie made their mother's hopes her own. A year after graduating with an Interior Design degree from Meredith College, Millie married her high school sweetheart, Will Mason. Within a few years they produced two children, a son followed by a daughter, of course.

“Thank goodness one of my daughters is giving me grandbabies,” her mother liked to say, casting her younger daughter in the role of the black sheep.

“Since when did leading your own life become a crime?” Gaby groans to her reflection in the bathroom mirror. Tears stream down her face. With the effects of the Valium kicking in, she feels as though she is watching a stranger cry.

Damn that box.

Gaby knew she shouldn't open it, but who could resist opening a package? Inside were two blankets her mother had crocheted.

“Ugly,” Gaby clucked, pulling them from the carton. Her mother had no sense of design when it came to her knitting; she bought whatever yarn was on sale regardless of the color combination. As Gaby held them near, she smelled her mother as if her Chanel #5 was woven into the neatly stitched rows.

Packages, they've been a part of her life forever. Camp, college and then the city, her mother loved to ship her stuff, mostly things she didn't want.

“Thanks, Mama.” Gaby tried to muster enthusiasm for the items, knowing full well she'd be giving most of them away to her friends.

Her mother always pushed her for the desired reaction. “Which one do you like best? Is the pink too pink for you?”

“I don't know,” Gaby told her. But that wasn't enough of an answer for her mother. Finally Gaby had to admit, “I wasn't needing any of it. And you know I hate pink!”

“Well, excuse me,” her mother sniffed. “I had no idea I raised such an ingrate. Honestly, Gabrielle!” She always used Gaby's full name when she was in a snit. Handcuffed by stubbornness, Gaby wouldn't apologize and now, since her death, she often wished she'd held her tongue from the get-go.

Sidestepping the pile of shopping bags on her way to the kitchen, Gaby kicks a stray ball of tissue paper, which skitters across the floor. She knows her inherited shopping gene has been mutating out of control. She hasn't been to the office in weeks. Instead, when she does venture out, Gaby wanders from store to store, maxing out her credit cards. In the kitchen she passes a stack of unopened credit card bills, “Last Notice” stamped on most of them. On several occasions, she's been on the verge of telling her shrink, but the words always get stuck. And the shopping continues.

“Why can't he just read my mind and save me the trouble?” she gripes, retrieving a frozen eye mask from the freezer. Gaby crawls back to the sofa, hoping it will remedy her swollen lids. She flinches as the cold mask shocks her skin.

The defrosting eye mask sends moisture dripping down the sides of her face and into her ears, a familiar feeling.

One year ago she was on top, with her own company, guys galore and Mama. Now she is just a weepy girl without a mother.

It's got to get better soon. That's what everyone says.

Gaby pulls one of the crotchet blankets up to her chin, wondering, when the fuck is soon?

Chapter Five

Sara gently lays Megan in the middle of her bed. It's the third time in the last few weeks that Megan has awakened crying in the middle of the night. At least tonight she made it to just before five, almost a whole night. She keeps saying that the dolls on her shelves are staring at her. Sara knows it's just a dream and she should make Megan go back to sleep in her own room, but she can't bear to let her cry. She climbs carefully into bed trying not to jostle her daughter, who has immediately fallen back asleep.

Listening to the rhythm of Megan's breathing, Sara moves a stray blond curl out of her face and dabs at the faint moisture left on her cheeks. Bart hated when Megan came into bed with them. Her little body always shifted horizontally and created a human “H,” with Megan's feet jabbing Bart every time she moved.

“She should sleep in her own bed,” he'd grumble, stalking off with his pillow stuffed under his arm to go sleep in the guestroom.

In the morning, Sara teased, “How was the downstairs hotel?”

But Bart's stony response made it clear that he didn't find being forced out of bed amusing at all.

It seems that since he left, the only times Sara sleeps soundly are the nights Megan comes into bed with her. Is it the feel of a warm body occupying Bart's spot, she wonders, snuggling closer to Megan. Their breathing falls in sync. Sara prays that her own emotional waffling isn't at the root of Megan's nightmares.

She wonders if Renny went home with the guy at the bar. Sara noticed him before the drinks arrived. She hates admitting that at first she thought he was looking at her. It's ridiculous, after all she is—the thought sticks before she can finish it. Is she still married? Legally and yes, the ache in her chest tells her she is still in love with Bart. But how could he abandon her like this? And how could she have even considered the fellow at the bar? The moment she would've stood her pregnant-self up, he'd have locked himself in the men's room.

Sara gently slips out of bed so as not to wake Megan. She opens Bart's closet and turns on the light. Stepping in, she pulls the door mostly closed, so not to disturb her daughter. Stray shirts and pants dangle amidst dozens of empty hangers. They are the sad castoffs that he hastily left behind.

She fingers a shirt sleeve. “I know how you feel,” Sara whispers. She looks around the empty closet as if searching for a clue as to why he left or where he went. They were having problems, but to most people their life was like a fairytale. They met at a party six years ago. She, Renny and Gaby all flirted with Bart that night, but it didn't matter because his focus was on Sara.

Renny often teased her. “It is only fitting that beauty should beget beauty.”

They married a year later. Two years after that they had Megan. As a book editor, Sara went back to work after maternity leave, but her heart and her head were at home with her child. At six months old, Megan came down with RSV. “It's the equivalent of the common cold in you and me,” the pediatrician had explained. “Only with infants it can be more serious.” Megan had to spend three days in the pediatric unit at Margate Hospital. On day four they brought her home and on day five, Sara gave her boss two-week notice, confident that Bart would support her decision.

That's when things started to change between them.

Bart didn't understand that Sara's love for Megan was all consuming and that the baby came first. They fought about everything. Bart always wanted to go out and Sara didn't. He wanted to travel and leave Megan with his parent's housekeeper, but she wouldn't hear of it. Their fights usually ended with slammed doors and Bart spending the night at his parents' penthouse apartment on Fifth Avenue. In the morning, he'd be back and they'd make up, until the next eruption.

When Sara became pregnant again they played connect-the-dots and moved from the city to the suburbs. Settling into their four-bedroom Greenwich house, Sara carved a life out of swatches and paint chips, new mommy friends and “play dates.” Bart walked around the house emitting heavy sighs that would have blown the house down if there wasn't beautiful terra cotta brick holding it together on all four sides.

The fights finally stopped, but mostly because they barely spent any time together. Soon after the move to Greenwich, Bart began leaving for work at dawn. “The traffic into the city is a nightmare. I'll be sitting there for hours otherwise,” he'd explain. “If I get there early, I can come home earlier.”

But he rarely did. “I'm swamped with work,” he'd say when she complained.

When they did find time to talk, Sara wondered if he was even listening. He'd look at her and nod, but he never seemed to really hear her. It got to be that when she opened her mouth, his eyes would glaze over and she'd stop, figuring why bother? But, after months of being invisible, Sara was fed up. “We can't go on like this forever,” she told him. “We need counseling.”

“I'm miserable,” he said, pouring out more than she ever anticipated. “Each day here, a piece of me dies.” They were in the living room sitting barely six inches apart on the sofa. Bart was hugging a silk throw pillow to his chest while Sara wished he would hug her. Finally, she asked the obvious, was he seeing someone else? His tears dripped on to the pillow, the water spot spreading outward as he told her, “I wouldn't do that to you. I love you and Megan and I swear there's no one else.” It was what Sara wanted to hear, but then he continued, “I have to go. I'll suffocate if I stay.”

The words stung like alcohol on a heart already rubbed raw from months of indifference. Then it dawned on her—he'd already given up on their life, walking out months ago, only forgetting to take the corpse she'd mistaken for a husband.

A note of jumbled thoughts and this empty closet were what she found a few mornings after they talked. For a brief moment she felt an odd calm, a relief, because after all, she wasn't happy either. But that was immediately supplanted by the panic at being left as a single pregnant mother. As Sara sobbed on the floor of Bart's closet, pain oozed from the ends of her hair to the tips of her toenails. Through her tears, she saw Megan sitting crisscross applesauce on the bed, her face a mix of curiosity and worry. Crawling from the closet, she popped “Barney, Live at Radio City” into the DVD player, and only after turning up the volume to drown out her anguish, did Sara go back in the closet to weep for her missing husband.

Since departing, Bart had called only once, about a week after he left. “I'm sorry, I'm sorry,” he had mumbled. Never once did he ask about Megan or tell Sara that he loved her.

“Where are you?” she'd asked.

“I'm on my way to California,” Bart told her.

“Why California?”

“I don't know.” Then he whispered another, “I'm sorry,” before hanging up.

Sara leaves the empty closet and slips back into bed next to Megan.
I'll suffocate if I stay.
His words ring in her head as she turns over in their king-sized four-poster bed.